“Great minds think alike, baby. I am so on it.”
“Is that Cookie?”
Strawberry had appeared at my side. I closed my phone and looked at her. “The one and only. That was fast. Did you find Rocket’s sister?”
“Of course.”
Awesome. I never knew if she really existed or if she’d been a figment of Rocket’s imagination. I waited for more info. Like forever. “And?”
“She’s blue.”
Blue? Well, she did die of pneumonia. Maybe the lack of oxygen turned her blue. “Okay, besides that.”
She did the crossing-of-her-arms thing. If it weren’t so cute, it would be annoying. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Does she know where Reyes’s body is?”
“No. She went to look. But she said Rey’aziel should not have been born on Earth.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“He’s very powerful.”
“Yeah, I figured that out a while ago.”
“And if his human body dies, he will become what he was born from the fires of hell to be.”
Okay, that was new. “Which is?” I asked, my voice edged with a wary dread.
“The ultimate weapon,” she said as if she were ordering an ice cream cone. “The bringer of death.”
“Well, crap.”
“The Antichrist.”
“Damn.”
“He is more powerful than any demon or any angel that ever existed. He can manipulate the space-time continuum and bring about the destruction of the entire galaxy and everything in it.”
“Okay, I get it,” I said, holding up a hand to stop her. I suddenly found myself fighting for air. I just had to ask. It couldn’t have been something easy, something non–world destroying. Oh, hell no. It had to be all apocalyptic and ghastly. Well, this sucked ass. I had no idea how to fight that. But finding Reyes’s body suddenly became imperative. “You found out a lot in that five minutes.”
“I guess,” she said with a shrug.
I switched gears, dropped down into neutral, then shifted myself into denial before looking back at Strawberry. “So, did you find out Rocket’s real name?”
“Yep,” she said, running her fingertips over the sleeve of my sweater. It was disturbing.
I waited. Like forever. “And?”
“And what?”
“Rocket’s name?”
“What about it?”
Deep breaths. Deep calming breaths. “Pumpkin head,” I said, calmly and deep-breathily, “what is Rocket’s name?”
She looked up as if I were insane. “Rocket. Duh.”
My teeth slammed together again. If it weren’t for her large, innocent eyes, the perfect pout of her bowlike mouth, I would have exorcised her right then and there. Well, if I knew how. I lowered my head instead, played with an errant string on my jeans. “Is Rocket okay?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, he’s just a little scared.”
Damn it. Reyes could be such a butthead. Freaking Antichrists. A thought emerged. “Hey, so what’s his little sister’s name?”
Her mouth dropped open before she glared up at me. “Do you even listen?”
What the heck did I do now? “What?”
“I already told you. Her name is Blue.”
“Oh, really?”
She nodded.
“Her name is Blue?”
She crossed her arms—again—and nodded, slowly, apparently so I would understand.
“Does she have a last name, mayhap?” Smart-ass.
“Yep. Bell.”
I sighed. Another nom de plume. “Blue Bell, huh?” Well, that wouldn’t bolster my investigation any. Rocket Man and Blue Bell. Wonderful. No, wait. Now I had a Rocket Man, a Blue Bell, and an alleged Antichrist. Never let it be said that life in Charley Land wasn’t interesting.
“So, why won’t Blue Bell come out to meet me?” I asked, slightly hurt only not.
“Really?” She eyed me like I was part blithering and part idiot. “Because if you had died and wanted to stay on Earth to hang with your bro for all eternity, would you introduce yourself to the one person in the universe who could send you to the other side?”
She had a point.
Taft finished his conversation and strolled back over. “Is she here?” he asked, looking around. They always looked around. Not sure why.
“In the flesh,” I said. “Metaphorically.”
“Is she still mad at me?” He kicked the sand at his feet.
Had I not been shell-shocked over the pending apocalypse, I would have laughed when Strawberry did the same, her tiny pink slippers skimming over the ground, disturbing nothing. “I wasn’t mad,” she said. “I just wish he would stop taking ugly girls to dinner.” Before I could say anything, she reached up and curled her fingers into mine. “He should take you to dinner.”
To say that the mere thought horrified me would have been a grievous understatement. I threw up a little in my mouth then swallowed hard, trying not to make a face. “She’s not really mad,” I told Taft when I recovered. I leaned in and whispered, “Just please, for the love of God, find a girl good enough to take home to your mother. And do it soon.”
“Okay,” he said, confusion locking his brows together.
“And stop dating skanks.”
Chapter Seven
I STOPPED FIGHTING MY INNER DEMONS.
WE’RE ON THE SAME SIDE NOW.
—T-SHIRT
After presenting my ID at the front, I strolled into the central police station, where they’d brought Warren Jacobs for questioning, and spotted Ubie across a sea of desks. Fortunately, only a couple of uniforms took note of my presence. Most cops didn’t take kindly to my invading their turf. Partly because I was Ubie’s secret weapon, solving cases before they could, and partly because they thought I was a freak. Neither particularly bothered me.
Cops were an odd combination of rules and arrogance, but I’d learned long ago that both attributes were needed for survival in their dangerous profession. People were downright crazy.
Ubie stood talking to another detective when I walked up to him. At the last minute, I remembered I was annoyed with him for putting a tail on me. Thank goodness I did, because I almost smiled.
“Ubie,” I said, icicles dripping from my voice.
Clearly unfazed by my cool disposition, he snickered, so I frowned and said, “Your mustache needs a trim.”
His smile evaporated and he groped his ’stache self-consciously. It was harsh of me, but he needed to know I was serious about my No-Surveillance Policy. I hardly appreciated his insensitivity to my need for privacy. What if I’d rented a porn flick?
The other detective nodded to take his leave, humor twitching the corners of his mouth as he walked away.
“Can I see him?” I asked.
“He’s in observation room one waiting for his lawyer.”
Taking that as a yes, I headed that way, then offered over my shoulder, “He’s innocent, by the way.”
Just as I stepped inside, he called out to me. “Are you just saying that ’cause you’re mad?”
I let the door close behind me without answering.
“Ms. Davidson,” Warren said, rising to take my hand. He actually looked a little worse than he had at the café. He wore the same charcoal suit, his tie loose, the top button of his shirt unfastened.
“How are you holding up?” I asked, sitting across from him.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” he said, his hands shaky with grief. Guilty people were often nervous during interviews as well, but for a different reason. More often than not, they were trying to come up with a good story. One that would cover all the bases and hold up in court. Warren was nervous because he was being accused of committing not one, but two crimes, and he’d committed neither.
“I don’t doubt that, Warren,” I said, trying to keep my voice firm nonetheless. He didn’t tell me everything, and I wanted to know why. “But you had an argument with Tommy Zapata a week before h
e was found dead.”
Warren’s head fell into his hands. I knew that Uncle Bob was watching. He’d kept Warren in an observation room, knowing I was coming to see him, but if he was hoping for some kind of confession, he was about to be very disappointed.
“Look, if I’d known he was going to be found dead, I would never have argued with him. Not in public, anyway.”
Well, at least he was smart. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”
“I did,” he said, his voice breathy with frustration. “I told you how I thought Mimi might have been having an affair. She changed so much, became so distant, so … unlike herself that I followed her one day. She had lunch with him, a car dealer, and I thought … I just knew she was having an affair.”
“Is there anything in particular that stood out? Anything that made you feel that way?”
“She was so different toward him, almost hostile. Before their food even arrived, she stood up to leave. He tried to get her to stay. He even took her hand, but she pulled back like she was repulsed by him. When she tried to walk past, he stood and blocked her path. That’s when I knew it was all true.” The memory seemed to drain the life out of him. His shoulders deflated as he thought back.
“Why?” I asked, fighting the urge to take his hand. “How did you know?”
“She slapped him.” He buried his face in his hands a second time and spoke from behind them. “She’s never slapped anyone in her life. It looked like a lovers’ quarrel.”
Finally, I put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at me, his eyes moist and lined in a bright red.
“After she left,” he continued, “I followed him to his dealership and confronted him. He wouldn’t tell me what was going on, only to keep an eye on Mimi, that she could be in danger.” Moisture dripped over his lashes, and he rubbed his eyes with the thumb and fingers of one hand. The other one balled into a fist on the table. “I’m so amazingly stupid, Ms. Davidson.”
“Of course you’re not stupid.”
“I am,” he said, pinning me with a look so desperate, I struggled to breathe under the weight of it. “I thought he was threatening her. Honestly, how thick can one person be? He was trying to warn me that something was happening, something beyond my control, and I yelled at him. I threatened everything from a lawsuit to … to murder. God, what have I done?” he asked himself.
I realized immediately Warren was going to need two things when all this was said and done: a good lawyer and a good therapist. Poor schmuck. Most women would kill to have someone so dedicated.
“What else do you know about him?” I asked. Surely he did some kind of investigating into this guy’s background.
“Nothing. Not much, anyway.”
“Okay, give me what you do have.”
“Really,” he said, lifting one shoulder in hopelessness, “Mimi went missing right after I confronted him. I just don’t have much.”
“And you thought she ran away with him?”
His fist tightened. “Told you I was thick.”
I could almost hear his teeth grinding in self-loathing. “Did you find out how she knew him?”
After a long sigh, he admitted, “Yes, they went to high school together.”
The bells and whistles of a winning spin on a slot machine echoed in my mind. That must have been some high school. “Warren,” I said, forcing his attention back to me, “don’t you get it?”
His brows furrowed in question.
“Two people who went to the same high school with your wife are now dead, and she’s missing.”
He blinked, realization dawning in his eyes.
“Did something happen?” I asked. “Did she ever talk about high school?”
“No,” he said as if he’d found the answer to it all.
“Crap.”
“No, you don’t understand. She never talked about her high school in Ruiz before she moved to Albuquerque, refused to. I asked her about it a couple of times, pushed her a little once, and she was so angry, she didn’t talk to me for a week.”
I leaned forward, hope spiraling out of me. “Something happened there, Warren. I promise you, I’ll find out what it was.”
He took my hand into his. “Thank you.”
“But if I die trying,” I added, pointing a finger at him, “I’m totally doubling my fee.”
A minuscule grin softened his features. “You got it.”
Just as we were wrapping up our conversation, his lawyer walked into the room. As they talked quietly, I excused myself and strolled to the two-way mirror, leaned in, and grinned. “Told you,” I said, hitching a thumb over my shoulder. “Innocent. That’ll teach you to put a tail on my ass.” Payback was fun.
* * *
After taking a picture back to the Chocolate Coffee Café to no avail—no one remembered seeing Mimi the night before—I flirted with Brad the cook a little then hustled back to the office, but Cookie had left early to have dinner with her daughter, Amber. Every time her twelve-year-old stayed with her dad, Cookie would insist on taking her to dinner at least once, worried that Amber would be miserable. I suddenly found it odd that in the two years I’d known Cookie, I had never met her ex. I had no idea what he even looked like, though Cook talked about him plenty. Most of it not good. Some not so bad. Some kind of wonderful.
Dad was at the bar when I made it downstairs for a bite. He tossed the towel to Donnie, his Native American barkeep who had pecs to die for and thick, blue-black hair for which every woman alive would sell her soul. But we’d never really seen eye to eye. Mostly ’cause he was much taller than I was.
I watched as Dad wound his way to my table. It was my favorite spot, nestled in a dark corner of the bar, where I could watch everyone without them watching me. I wasn’t particularly fond of being watched. Unless the watcher was over six feet with a hot body and sexy smile. And he wasn’t a serial killer. That always helped.
Dad’s coloring was still off. The normally bright hues of his aura that encompassed him were now murky and gray. The only other time I’d seen him like this was when he was a detective working a brutal series of missing-children cases. It was so bad, in fact, he wouldn’t let me get involved. I was twelve at the time, old enough to know everything and then some, but he’d refused my offer of help.
“Hey, pumpkin,” he said, plastering on that fake smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, doing the same.
He brought us both a ham-and-cheese on whole wheat, exactly what I’d been craving.
“Mmm, thanks.”
With a smile, he watched while I bit into it, while I chewed then swallowed, while I chased the bite with a swig of iced tea.
I paused and turned to him. “Okay, this is getting creepy.”
After an apprehensive laugh, he said, “Sorry. I just … You’re growing up so fast.”
“Growing up?” I coughed into my sleeve before continuing. “I’m pretty much grown.”
“Right.” He was still somewhere else. A different time. A different place. After a moment, he refocused and grew serious. “Sweetheart, is there more to your ability than what you’ve told me?”
I’d taken another bite and drew my brows together in question.
“You know, things. Can you … do things?”
Last week, I had the murderous husband of a former client try to kill me. Reyes had saved my life. Again. And he’d done it in his usual manner. He’d appeared out of nowhere and severed the man’s spinal cord with one lighting flash of his sword. Since that very same thing had happened in the past—criminals’ spinal columns being severed with no outside trauma whatsoever, no medical explanation—I feared Dad was beginning to make the connection.
“Things?” I asked, an air of innocence in my voice.
“Well, for example, that man who attacked you last week.”
“Mmm-hmm,” I said, taking another bite.
“Did you … Can you … Are you able—?”
“I didn’t
hurt him, Dad,” I said after I swallowed. “I told you, there was another man there. He threw the guy against the cage of the elevator. The impact must have—”
“Right,” he said, shaking his head. “I—I knew that. It’s just, our forensics guy said that was impossible.” He lifted his gaze to mine, his soft brown eyes probing.
I sat my sandwich down. “Dad, you don’t really think I have the capability to hurt someone, do you?”
“You have such a gentle soul,” he said sadly.
Gentle? Did he know me at all?
“I just … I wonder if there’s more to it—”
“I brought dessert.”
We both looked up at my stepmother. She scooted a chair next to Dad and planted her ass in it, carefully placing a white dessert box on the table. I could tell she’d just had her short brown hair styled and her nails done. She smelled like hairspray and nail polish. I often wondered what my dad saw in the woman. He was just as blinded by her too-polished exterior as everyone else. Anyone who knew her—or thought they knew her—called her a saint for taking on a cop husband with two small children. Saint was not the word that came to my mind. I think I gave her the heebie-jeebies. In all fairness, she did the same to me. Her lipstick was always a little too red for her pale skin, her shadow a little too blue. Her aura a little too dark.
My sister, Gemma, followed in her wake, taking the only seat available next to me with an obligatory, albeit strained, smile. Her blond hair was pulled back in a taut wrap, and she wore just enough makeup to look made up yet still professional. She was a shrink, after all.
Our relationship, while never award-winning, had gone nowhere but down since high school. No idea why. She was three years older and had taken every opportunity growing up to remind me of that fact. While Denise was the only mother I had ever known—sadly—Gemma had had three wonderful years with our real mother before she died giving birth to yours truly. I’d often wondered if that was where the strain in our relationship stemmed from. If Gemma subconsciously blamed me for our mother’s death.
But the vacancy had been filled only a year later when my dad married the she-wolf. And Gemma had taken to her instantly. I, on the other hand, had yet to reach that apex of the mother–daughter bond. I preferred my bondage stepmother-free and sprinkled with a little sexy.
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